Connemara
by Crookshanks22
Summary: A spare sketch of Seamus Finnigan's mother and his hardscrabble home life.


"Me dad's a Muggle. Mam didn't tell him she was a witch 'til after they were married. Bit of a nasty shock for him."

-- Seamus Finnigan, in J.K. Rowling, _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone_

**Connemara**

She lives alone, a grass widow in Connemara.

She was three months gone with child when he left her. Two weeks wed, and three months gone with child. When he came back, the boy was three. He likes the boy now a great deal better than he likes her. He likes the boy enough to come round once, twice, three times in a year. He likes the boy almost enough to forgive him for being magic.

But he tells his wife that in another age they would have burnt her. He tells his wife before the Blight, they would have burnt her. He tells his wife the English would have burnt her.

He doesn't see how alike they are, magic or no.

Moira Finnigan isn't young, and she was born into an Ireland that had barely entered the modern age, into a smoky one-room cottage, thatched roof, peat walls, dirt floor. Into a stony world of poverty and want, where sandy-haired farmers hoed the petulant sandy earth.

In a land where Muggle and magic were barely rent, Moira's family didn't live well, magic or no. Magic or no, no one lives well on leprechaun gold.

She doesn't like to think of her son, shut up in Gryffindor Tower, with all that Longbottom pride and all that Potter wealth and fame. She doesn't like to think his roommates know that his fees are being paid by the same fund that paid Severus Snape's, the same fund that paid Tom Riddle's.

It isn't like that, he says. If he's told her once, he's told her a thousand times that Neville Longbottom is an awkward little rabbit of a pureblood and Harry Potter thought he was no one until he was eleven years old. Dean is poor and Ron is poor and Neville's allowance is scant. If he's told her once, he's told her a thousand times, but the plain truth is, she doesn't like his going off to school. She doesn't like his leaving Connemara.

She doesn't like his living in a castle full of house-elves, with meat at every meal. She doesn't like his living with Quidditch games instead of mass. She doesn't like his lusting after that chit from Brighton, whose parents run a third-rate B&B. She much prefers the West Indian kid from London, who knows just how he rates and isn't ashamed to be poor.

Alone in a smoky room, Moira's laying out the cards, and the Ace of Spades spells death. From the Tarot deck she draws the Moon and the Lightning Struck Tower. Alone in a smoky room, she stirs her tea and peers into the leaves. She thinks she sees a falcon. She thinks she sees a cross. She thinks she sees a Grim. She thinks he'll get himself killed and never come home to Connemara. She thinks he'll get Imperiused, Cruciatused, undone. Screamed at by a banshee. Or he'll marry the chit from Brighton without telling her who he is, a just barely legitimate farmboy from a barren sandy plot in Connemara.

She didn't know how he'd be sorted. The family is mixed, some Gryffindor, more Hufflepuff, Slytherin Goyles on her mother's mother's side. Her father's mother was totally illiterate, though wise in Druidic ways. She spoke only Gaelic and never stirred five miles from Connemara.

Her son was sorted into Gryffindor and she thought, brave? Of course he's brave. He's Irish. She told her half-Goyle mother, who said, brave? Stupid, more like. But of course he's brave. He's Irish.

It takes a damn fool lot of bravery to live in Connemara.

Alone in a smoky room, Moira slaps the _Daily Prophet_ on a rickety wooden table and thinks that bravery, in the present state of world affairs, is a virtue she could have done without, in her only son. She thinks this anew every August, in the present state of world affairs. She says this anew every August, but he's seventeen now and he doesn't listen anymore.

Her dad was proud when she was sorted into Gryffindor, not like those slippery town-bred Goyles, those arrogant Protestant Goyles, on her mother's side. Sure, my daughter's brave, he said. She's Irish. A sandy-haired mavourneen from Connemara.

She stirs the cold dregs of her tea and she thinks, brave? Stupid, more like. But of course I'm brave.

It was brave to marry a Muggle without telling him who I was, condemning myself thereby to live alone, a grass widow in Connemara.

* * *

Author note: This interpretation of Seamus Finnigan's home life was inspired in part by Diana Summers's intriguing essay, "The Secrets of the Class List," which is posted on the Harry Potter Lexicon. 


End file.
